Don't Fear The Reaper
by His Majesty the Emperor
Summary: The Final Confrontation Between Two Old Rivals. An interpretation of the Big Scene from the Episode Twin Suns. Don't read if you haven't seen the episode. MAJOR SPOILERS!


**I do not own Star Wars Rebels, that would be Disney. I'm not profiting from this in any way. This is just my Interpretation of the Big Scene from the Rebels Episode Twin Suns. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!**

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It began and ended in three moves.

They were both old, weathered and beaten by age and hardship. And yet, as the end approached, the two old warriors could not have been further apart.

Kenobi was patient and focused. There was only the mission. There was only the Force, and the Force gave him balance.

Maul was deranged with hate and despair. A lifetime of agony, of failure, of desperation, had driven him back to the place where it had all begun; the place where his life, his destiny, had spiraled out of control.

Everything was lost in the time since he had first come to this accursed world. Stripped of his power, his body mutilated, he had been cast aside and forgotten. His attempts to secure a legacy had been all for naught.

All that remained was his hate, the hate for the man who had sent him hurtling into oblivion all those years ago, and set him on this ignominious path.

That hate was his undoing.

Maul slashed twice with feral rage, Kenobi blocked twice with practiced ease, sinking into the current of the Light Side, and then an azure blade of pure plasma cut through flesh and bone.

As the handle of his saber broke apart in his hands, Maul looked down at the smoking gash which had torn his chest open.

This was how Darth Maul, onetime Dark Lord of the Sith, Crime-Lord, Warlord, and scourge of the Jedi Order, came to die. No great songs would be sung of this battle, nor would any storyteller see fit to discuss this deed. He would die quickly, ignominiously, without fanfare, without pomp or circumstance.

His death was an anti-climax. But then again, had not his entire life been an anti-climax?

He had been molded and twisted his entire life by the most powerful Sith Lord in the galaxy. He had been intended to be that Dark Lord's right hand. His enforcer. His name would be carved in the very stars for all the galaxy to see. Maul's belief in the inevitability of his own victory was the cornerstone of his very identity.

And in the end, he had been bisected by a lucky Padawan. Since then his life had been a repetitive cycle of buildup and disappointment. His attempts to carve out a place for himself in the underworld had been foiled by his onetime master. His attempts to secure knowledge on Malachor had yielded no benefits. His petty attempts at vengeance against Kenobi had not satiated his pain. His attempt to secure a new apprentice had failed.

In coming here to Tatooine, in coming to face the man who had ruined his chance for vengeance against the Jedi, Maul had achieved the same thing he had achieved throughout his entire life; nothing.

He had achieved nothing in this life. All his plans and all his power had been laid low.

As death came rushing towards him, as he fell towards the ground, he had expected to feel the cold, hard ground beneath him.

He did not expect to be caught.

And he certainly did not expect to be held.

Never in his life had he been held. Sith did not coddle their apprentices, no matter how young they might have been. Life was cruel, and compassion was for the weak.

And yet Kenobi kept him from falling to the ground.

Maul didn't understand. His vision was blurring, but Kenobi appeared…sad?

The Force emanating from Kenobi was tinged with…regret? Sorrow?

No. No, no, no, that couldn't be right! Kenobi was his enemy! Had not Maul done all he could to revenge himself upon his hated nemesis? Had he not slaughtered the innocent to assault Kenobi's Jedi conscience? Had he not tortured Kenobi at every possible opportunity all those years ago? Had he not gutted his Jedi Master before his very eyes?

Had he not robbed him of his beloved Duchess?

Maul had reveled in Kenobi's pain. Such was the way of the Darkside. Such was the way of life. He had done everything in his power to break Kenobi, as he himself had been repeatedly broken.

Broken by Kenobi. Broken by Sidious. Broken by time and his own inability to grasp at and control the currents of fate.

Why should he be broken while Kenobi remained whole?

The Darkness was creeping through him, and with it came Fear. The fear which all creatures of the Darkside felt.

The fear of death.

Perhaps it was desperation. Perhaps it was denial. Or maybe this was what the Jedi called hope. But Maul could not bear to enter oblivion knowing that everything had been in vain. He could not bear the idea that Sidious had robbed him of everything and would triumph unopposed.

Even if he couldn't be there, he needed to know that those who had usurped and replaced him would be punished.

"Tell me." Maul whispered. "Is he the Chosen One?"

"He is." Kenobi whispered.

Many a Darksider went to their deaths alone and afraid, filled with rage at themselves and their enemies. Maul wasn't sure what he felt. Perhaps it was satisfaction.

"He…will…avenge us."

With those last words spoken sightless yellow eyes absorbed the light of the cold stars above with uncomprehending opacity.

As he cradled the body of his would-be nemesis, Kenobi thought to himself that the greatest tragedy of all was that, even as he lay dying, the man who had once been Darth Maul hadn't learned anything.

Vengeance was not the Jedi Way. It was not the way of the Light. Fools believed that Vengeance and Justice were one and the same, but Justice was administered without selfishness or self-interest. Those who truly sought justice did not seek self-gratification for perceived slights.

Yes, the Jedi had been wronged. Kenobi himself had been wronged. But to focus on one's own pain was to lose track of reality. Billions had died at the hands of the Sith. Trillions more were oppressed. To think of one's self at a time like this when so many others were hurting was unthinkable.

Was that why he cradled this man's corpse in his hands? Most men would have laughed or felt overjoyed at the death of someone who had caused as much personal anguish and misery as Maul had caused for Kenobi.

Maul had gleefully killed the people Kenobi had loved. He had reveled in the agony of Satine's death and the destruction of her pacifist dreams. He had exulted in the pain of Qui-Gon's death. His pursuit of Kenobi and his desire to inflict endless agony upon him had filled Maul with zealous glee.

Why then did Kenobi mourn for his passing? Perhaps it was because Jedi could not afford the luxury of feeling delight at the suffering of an enemy.

Would Kenobi have been so compassionate if Vader lay dead before him? Would he have handled his old apprentice's cadaver with such tenderness?

Perhaps not. But Vader and Maul were separate creatures. Though both were of the Darkside, Vader had embraced the Dark Path of his own free will as an adult. Maul had had the Darkside chosen for him as an infant.

Maul's Mother and his Master had warped him from birth. They had viciously stamped any compassion, any decency, out of him in their twisted attempt to construct the ultimate assassin.

Vader had been surrounded by friends and family who loved him and had only wanted what was best for him. He had repaid their generosity with resentment and betrayal.

Maul could not help what he was. Even after he had been abandoned by the Sith, even having abandoned the title Darth, the allure of hatred still indoctrinated Maul. The Darkside was all he had ever known. Nothing Kenobi could have said would have helped him see the folly of his misplaced wrath.

What struck Kenobi most in Maul's final moments had been the surprising vulnerability Maul had shown as death came to claim him. Only moments before their duel Maul had been ever the braggart, belittling Kenobi's position as a hermit, implying threats against the one he was sworn to protect.

It was all an act. Kenobi had no idea how many millions had fallen for the same act. The bravado, the boasting, the swagger of the Sith. It was all smoke and mirrors meant to obfuscate. The Sith, like all things spawned by the Darkside, adored displays of power and cruelty. Like animals, they used violence as a means to convince others they were dominant.

It was all a lie, a lie so many were taken in by.

The Darkside, for all its fancy parlor tricks and displays of supposed strength, was nothing more than illusion.

Festering beneath the domineering façade of the Sith was abject terror. The Sith were convinced that there was no life after death. Death, in their eyes, was the greatest defeat, representative of the undoing of all their accomplishments.

For Millennia thousands of Sith had desperately sought out the means to achieve immortality. In their delusion, the Sith had embraced cruelty and murder. By slaughtering their rivals in their hundreds, the slaves of the Darkside convinced themselves that they had some measure of control over death, since they regularly meted it out to their many enemies.

This comforting delusion did not, could not spare them when death eventually came to claim them. Many a Sith had found the means to prolong their lives through arcane ritual, but in time they had all been robbed of their supposed control over death.

In that moment, all pretensions of power and control were stripped away. Like frightened children who had never grown up, they found their haughty pride torn from them, replaced only with the knowledge that all of their struggles and supposed achievements had been efforts in futility.

If they were not immortal, would not the hands of time eventually render all their achievements to dust? Would they not be forgotten? With such a mindset in place it was no surprise that they were frightened.

Kenobi was no stranger to death. He had held others as they became one with the Cosmic Force. He had held Qui-Gon. He had held Satine. His bond with them had allowed him to feel their pain, their discomfort at what might lie beyond this life. And above all else he had felt their love for him, just as they felt his love for them. That love had comforted them in their final moments.

Maul did not have such a luxury. He knew only hate and the satisfaction of revenge. If he felt any love at all it was likely self-love or possessive love. He could not truly comprehend compassion or selfless love. This alone was worth Kenobi's pity.

Kenobi did not love Maul, he did not even like him. But he could mourn the man Maul was never allowed to be, and perhaps allow him to go to his grave satisfied that the monster who had robbed him of a life worth living would soon become undone.

Few deserved to die without hope.

As Kenobi closed Maul's eyes, he paused to reflect on Maul's final words. He will avenge us. Not me. Us.

Somehow Maul had divined what was to come.

Obi-Wan Kenobi knew what was to come. His destiny did not lie with the rebellion, as the young Ezra Bridger had suggested. No, a final confrontation was inevitable. Before he left this life Obi-Wan Kenobi would cross paths with his former pupil.

The coming confrontation would likely be just as brief as this one. But it was as Kenobi had said to Maul, "If you define yourself by your power to take life, the desire to dominate, to possess, then you have nothing."

He would die as Maul died, run through by the blade of a lightsaber. But Maul died a broken shell of a man with nothing to live for beyond his own pain.

Obi-Wan would become more powerful than anyone could possibly imagine, and in doing so would reveal to his former apprentice by his actions that there was more to Life and Death than the Sith could possibly imagine.

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 **So I get the feeling that some people reading this will be annoyed that I've basically made Maul and the Sith into a bunch of pathetic cowards. A lot of Star Wars fans think the Sith are badass. But my interpretation of what we've been shown, both in Canon and in Legends, is that the Sith are basically, for lack of a better term, a bunch of posers. They talk a good game, and some are much better at hiding it than others, but at the end of the day your average Sith Lord is terrified of their own mortality. The whole Social Darwinist Ubermensch ideology they have going for themselves is a smokescreen created to cover up their own personal shortcomings as people and their own personal phobias. At least that's my personal interpretation. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.  
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